The Master Puppeteer
by L.Marks
Summary: How it is possible that Rassilon manipulated all events leading up to the Time War. Could be a one-shot, but I have more scraps on the unidentified Time Lady - just not that much time to work on it. This was an excerpt.


Certain of triumph on the very eve of defeat, Rassilon paced his cabinet from end to end, refusing to acknowledge the possibility of failure. Most importantly now, he had to stop the deserters, the betrayers of of his trust. After all, so many great minds had put every effort into releasing him, it would be less than ungrateful to leave now, when victory was in hand.

It was at that very moment, as if echoing his thoughts, that a signal came shattering onto his consciousness: the guards had detected the activation of a time capsule - in the Museum of Relics, of all places, in the storage rooms that housed such old machinery that it was either unidentifiable or defunct. These things never went on display. Rage surged through him, boiling and unforgiving, as he snapped at the gormless guards that he would see to the trouble himself.

He believed them to be terrifically useless, this new breed of Time Lords. His generation had been suited to War and Discovery. Now, in what little time he had, he had been forced to make a warrior nation of them, and had turned instead to what they were best at - true cerebral work. At least in that they did not disappoint him, even managed to impress him. But the dissidents were a serious problem - no one had dared question him before.

Entering the old storage halls, Rassilon looked about him carefully, and readjusted the Gauntlet on his hand. Deserters deserved no mercy. He turned and walked briskly in the direction of the old time capsule room, expecting to have no trouble finding this filthy maggot. Yet when he found the room, he discovered it to be in greater disarray than he had imagined. Somewhere in this mess, there was a Time Lord trying desperately to escape with his life and a TARDIS that, most likely, couldn't even manage to hover a foot off the ground.

He slipped around the wreckage carefully, slowly edging past each twisted or disemboweled mass of piping and ribbing, until he finally caught sight of his traitor. Much to his surprise, it wasn't a cowardly maggot at all, but a straight-backed and confident figure checking levels of energy on a small portable computer and TARDIS charging station, looking from the blinking screen to an old Type 13.

Rassilon, befuddled, could not help himself, and laughed. "You'll never get that off the ground," he snarled, stepping out into full view of this shadowed figure. She was wrapped in a cloak and hooded so that he could not see her face, but at least by her comportment and her frame he could tell it was a very dignified, unruffled Time Lady, tall and stately - perhaps the head of some ancient family. That alone awakened some respect in him. She was not afraid of him, and she was not running like a coward from the sight of war. "Why?" he asked, spreading his hands before him.

"I do not wish to be on the losing side of this mess," she answered quietly.

"You think we will lose?" he asked darkly, but the threat in his tone slipped right past her: she shrugged and tapped a few characters into the computer. "So, the Daleks will defeat us?"

"I don't think so," she replied unexpectedly. "No one in this war can win. Far better would it have been to have a Cold War - so many would not have lost their lives, especially those who were not a part of it."

"And what could you gain from escaping this place? You would be alone, all alone for the rest of time."

"I don't see why you think that - as though some haven't managed to escape already. In fact, I truly regret that there are those who chose instead to fight, and oppose you, rather than simply run for their lives. Cowardice was by far the better choice."

"Cowardice! What fools, what idiots - to give up hope on everything they have ever loved, and by leaving this place, sacrifice it to our enemies! Disgraceful."

"Cowardice is aggressive, yes. But this world is not the world we fought for. That is why so many rose against you. You crushed every one of them, and if I could save them, I would - but I am alone. And I could not stand alone to oppose you."

"_You_ came to _me_, you brought me back from the Tower. And I _will_ save Gallifrey, I _will_ return my people to their former glory!"

"But it is not glory that we seek, not victory or power, but survival. For the first time the Time Lords face their equal, their rival. And why did we trust you? Why should we? Ever since they got you out of that Tower, things have gone from bad enough to worse than ever. We thought we were resurrecting a genius, the best of all minds on Gallifrey, but instead we found you. These are not your people anymore, Rassilon, and even those you remember were not your own."

The fearless Time Lady stepped away from the computer console and slid from out of the dark a smaller table - a game called Infinity Chess, which had a time component to it.

"Listen, let me tell you a story," she continued. "It doesn't need to be true - but if anyone were to hear it, they would have little difficulty believing it. Let me tell you about Gallifrey, about how we really came to this mess. You were their great leader, the dictator of Gallifrey. There was so much to do, and in your vanity you were certain that you alone could lead your people to their great new age. Well, perhaps you were right.

"You sought Knowledge, you sought Immortality. And perhaps you did find the latter - but in fear of you and of your newfound power, some of your subjects thought it best to imprison you. They were those geniuses, whose work you alternately stole or adapted to your own purposes - so often purposes they could never have condoned. And there you were, trapped, while your world went to the dogs. But your mind was in the Matrix, and the mind of every Time Lord on Gallifrey, and of every President - so you were never really uninformed, and though you were trapped, you could control the progress of this world in at least some way, couldn't you?"

The shadowed figure slowly began to circle Rassilon, archly approaching a small table, upon which a game of chess had unfolded. "Infinity Chess. Yes, that's about right." The pieces started to blink a little, as of the chessboards within each square had started to move, quicker and quicker. "How's about a match, eh? All this Time, coaxing things into motion, suggesting courses of events, prodding. Who drove Borusa to madness in his time as President, to wrest from him the location of the Lost Key? How many regenerations did you put him through in that struggle? No doubt, of all Presidents, he had used the Matrix most, out of necessity. You used his thirst for knowledge, and manipulated him into becoming your puppet. Funny enough, he was a bit bolder - he took up your quest for immortality as well. You didn't expect that, did you? He turned the tables, there - he used your own obsession to trap himself where he could do no more harm."

The pieces accelerated, and they seemed to be moving backwards. "But the Time War... well, what good was it for you to remain trapped, so very nearly powerless? It took centuries, millennia, to manipulate your world - what good was that? But no, you needed to be real, to be present. And the Time Lords would surely only turn to you in a time of crisis. So why not manufacture one? Eh?" The pieces stopped momentarily, hovering. "What could possibly be terrible enough for the Time Lords to resurrect you? Daleks? Hm. Well, why not."

The pieces suddenly jumped once more, reversing the reversed game, but faster. "How else would the Daleks have discovered Time Travel? They didn't have such a thing as a Prime Directive for it, though - how could they - they'd come by it too quickly. They lost that ability so many times, going back to times and places they really shouldn't have. But in the end they finally got themselves straightened out. You needed someone to make them strong, someone for them to fear, so you eventually managed to suggest to the Time Lords to send the Doctor to attempt to destroy them - but he'd never be a party to genocide, and you knew it. Sworn enemies, they became. A war this bloody and twisted will end in Time Lock, splintering the rest of the world, but even then, the question is, who will be left standing. Times change, even Fixed Points. Sometimes details are all you need to change the course of the Universe."

The pieces on the board were moving so fast now that it became a red blur. The Lady put her hand over it abruptly, and it stopped - becoming an altogether different board and different game. "Well, Rassilon? It's a good story. Or at least it would be - if it were true."

The Time Lord leaned against the table heavily, staring into the depths of the dark hood. The woman leaned towards him as well, and a band of light revealed her sparkling grey eyes. "But what if it were true? What then? Watch me: I am the Future, and your plans cascade away into Darkness. _Sepulchasm!_"

The chessboard suddenly became a whirlpool, with a great gaping hole in the middle. Struggling to keep the infinite chess pieces in place, Rassilon watched as the Time Lady quickly withdrew, disconnecting the console from the TARDIS. She turned on its very threshold, and cast a final look at the board. Her black pieces danced in the air, with no sign of falling. "Rassilon!" she called back to him, as beads of sweat appeared on his brow. "Sometimes to lose is to win."

The black pieces suddenly fell into the gaping mouth of the board as she voluntarily released them. Rassilon stepped back sharply as a black cylinder floated up in the air before him. It was a kind of flash-bomb, he realised. It cracked open before him and as it flung him back through the air, he heard the Type 13 dematerialise, groaning and creaking in a sinister way, as if it could blow to pieces at any moment.


End file.
